The Case for more Assembly Members

We need more Assembly members don’t we

If you missed the demonstrators chanting we want more Assembly members and when do we want them now, so did I. Whilst there is a strong body of opinion calling for more Assembly members with an increase to either 80 or a 100, I do not see a demand by the public to have more members of the National Assembly.

With Government Ministers, the Leader of the two main opposition parties and the presiding officer sitting on no committees and the Deputy Presiding officer only on two specific committees that leaves 42 members to cover all the scrutiny committees.

Having served on three committees for almost five years, there are three things that I have discovered. Firstly that the committees remit for the 10 member committees is far too wide. I have served on the Communities, Equality and Local Government Committee which covers a very wide range of policy areas from the Welsh language to Local Government and Broadcasting. Secondly as most people giving a viewpoint or evidence to a committee appear for one hour then with ten members there is an average of 6 Minutes each to ask questions and receive answers, which is usually insufficient for any in depth questioning. Thirdly that if a committee wants to produce a well researched report then it cannot do it unless it gets a wide range of opinions.

Currently in the Welsh Assembly there are five committees that have 10 members with two committees of 8, two committees have 5 members and two committees have 4. If every committee had 4, 5 or 6 members then seven new committees could be created. Adding another 20 members would create 4 more committees and adding 40 would create another 8 committees based upon a committee size of 10.

If committee size was reduced the advantages would be more time for individuals to ask questions, the ability to specialise in a much smaller area of government activity and the ability for each member of the committee to ask twice as many questions in an hour and also  follow up on questions that are either inadequately answered or answered incorrectly.

If there are these advantages of having smaller committees then why do all the main committees that deal with legislation, except for the finance committees, have a membership of ten. Finance has eight because there is only one Conservative party member whilst there should be two under proportionality. The committees are set up in accordance with two rules, as Labour has 50% of the Assembly membership they are eligible to 50% of the committee seats and each other party has a number proportionate to its membership of the Assembly is rule 1 and rule 2 is that the Liberal Democrats have to have a member on each committee. Whilst rule 1 is consistent with proportionality on council committees and with fairness, the second rule appears, at least to me, bizarre. If this continues and the Liberal Democrats lose a seat then the committee size increases by 3 and if they lose two seats then committee size increases by seven or eight.

In Plenary session’s questions to the first minister and other ministers, with approximately 15 minutes given for party spokespeople, it only leaves half an hour for each minister to be questioned by the rest of the Assembly Members. I make an average of about two questions a week but with additional members it will become more difficult to raise questions relating to the constituency and constituent’s interests unless the question time was increased. The same is true of debates and government statements where more members will dilute even further the opportunity for non government ministers and opposition spokespeople to take part.

I would support trying smaller committees and only if that proved unworkable, which I do not think it will, look to increase the number of Assembly members.